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COraRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 



THE UNDYING SPIRIT 
OF FRANCE 

(LES TRAITS ETERNELS DE LA FRANCE) 



BY 

Maurice Barres 



TRANSLATED BY 

Margaret W. b. Corwin 

WITH A FOREWORD BY 

Theodore Stanton 




NEW HAVEN: YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS 

LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD 

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 

MDCCCCXVII 



^ 






k^ 



Copyright, 191 7 
By Yale University Press 



First published, October, 191 7 



NOV 27 (917 
©C!.A4793:it 



FOREWORD 

M. Maurice Barres is a man of such 
varied interest that he might well be 
studied from more than one point of 
view. I shall concentrate my attention, 
however, particularly to that side of his 
character shown in his activities as a 
writer, with a brief glance at those as 
politician and patriot. 

As a writer M. Barres stands unques- 
tionably in the front rank of living 
French authors. His ability for mar- 
shalling facts is unexcelled, while his 
style of expression has seldom been 
equalled. At times his ideas may not 
coincide with ours, but we can never fail 
to recognize the skill and charm with 
which they are presented. The follow- 
ing pages seem to me to reflect, even in 
translation, his choice diction and the 
masterly arrangement of his material. 
Indeed his gifts of style have been con- 
sidered remarkable by the best critics of 



vi FOREfVORD 

France. M. Paul Desjardlns spoke of 
him in the late twenties as "that youth 
endowed with remarkable diction," M. 
Charles Maurras writes of "the music 
of Barres's prose," while M. Henri 
Bremond, in what is to me the finest 
critical study of Barres written up to ten 
years ago, the preface to "Vingt-cinq 
Annees de Vie Litteraire," devotes a 
section to "Barres's rhythm." M. 
Anatole France, reviewing one of M. 
Barres's books, says: "His language is 
supple and at the same time precise; it 
has wonderful resources." 

It Is interesting to note what Barres 
himself says on the same subject. "The 
art of writing must satisfy these two 
requirements — it must be musical and 
meet the demand for mathematical pre- 
cision, which exists among the French 
in every well-regulated soul." 

As a British journalist and author, the 
Hon. Maurice Baring, points out, M. 
Barres's "early books are written in an 
elaborate style and are often obscure." 
As he advanced in life and experience. 



FOREWORD vii 

however, his style became less involved 
and the obscurity disappeared com- 
pletely, as the readers of the following 
pages can confirm. In this respect he 
reverses the course of one of his ad- 
mirers, Henry James, who began his 
literary career with a clear style and 
clear thought and ended with both 
bathed in ambiguity. 

Hero-worship also stands out prom- 
inently in M. Maurice Barres's writ- 
ings. To him all "exceptional men" are 
heroes. He is very catholic in his choice 
of them, numbering in his earlier books 
those as varied as Napoleon, Renan and 
Taine. Later Boulanger and Deroulede 
became his chief worthies. With the 
coming of the war M. Barres attains the 
climax of his reverence for exceptional 
men, for it is at the shrine of the martyr 
soldier boys of France that he worships, 
as we shall see in the pages that follow. 
Here, as in the matter of style, his taste 
mellows with age. 

Considering Barres as a patriot and 
politician, we are almost tempted to 



viii FOREWORD 

pronounce him the Roosevelt of France. 
There are Indeed marks of resemblance 
between these two "exceptional men," 
in their character, ideas, books and 
activities. For Barres, like Roosevelt, 
Is an ardent disciple of the doctrine of 
"the strenuous life." Thus, In the pref- 
ace to "L'Ennemi des Lois," we read: 
"It is not systems which we lack, but 
energy, — the energy to conform our 
habits to our way of thinking." His 
"Deracines" has been called by him "a 
novel of national energy." 

Barres's excessive patriotism Is also 
Rooseveltan in many respects. He was 
born in Lorraine in 1862 and was con- 
sequently but a child when the Prov- 
inces were torn from France in 1871. 
His native region is ever in his mind and 
heart, and stands out conspicuously in 
all his writings. In the preface to "Au 
Service de I'AUemagne," he says: "The 
author being a French Lorrainer neces- 
sarily judges everything from the stand- 
point of Lorraine and France." Note 
how he puts Lorraine even before 



FOREWORD ix 

France. It appears in his very first 
book. In his latest volume, "Les 
Diverses Families Spirituelles de la 
France," Lorraine is not forgotten. In 
his most recent essay, that in the July 
Atlantic Monthly, it is continually ap- 
pearing, nor is it absent from the ora- 
tion which follows. 

I recall the presence of Barres at 
Rennes during the famous Dreyfus trial 
of 1899. He represented a Paris daily 
to which he sent, nightly, long telegrams, 
and I performed a like duty for an 
American cable syndicate. But we were 
in opposite camps and did not speak. 
I still see his sparse figure of medium 
height and not yet touched with the 
embonpoint of the forties, leaning over 
the back of the bench in front of him, 
his swarthy face crowned with heavy 
dark hair which shaded his deep-set 
piercing eyes, following attentively every 
word, and intonation, and phrase of 
those heart-moving depositions. 

Of late M. Barres has frequently 
expressed the hope that the "union 



X FOREWORD 

sacrce" created by the present war, 
would continue after the peace. "Is it 
possible," he asks, "that the same forces 
which, only yesterday, precipitated us, 
one against the other, but which the 
mobilization checked, — is it possible 
that this is all to begin again? Yes, but 
this time not for the purpose of dividing 
us or with any aim of exclusion; this 
time will be founded on our diversity the 
finest and most active amity. . . . The 
only diversities which now exist are 
those which spring from our nature and 
history. . . . To-day France is unified 
and purified." 

Our entrance into the war has been 
balm in Gilead to the patriotic soul of 
Barres and has deepened his old warmth 
of feeling for America. As I am cor- 
recting the proofs of this preface, he 
sends me this message from his native 
Charmes, in the Vosges: "In this corner 
of Lorraine where I am writing you, 
and where during the night we hear the 
rumble of our victorious cannon, I am 
the neighbor of your first contingent. 



FOREWORD xi 

Give US five hundred thousand as good 
as these ten or twenty thousand superb 
soldiers, and our common foe will begin 
to make a wry face." 

During the past year or two, M. 
Barres has made the home letters of the 
young French heroes at the front his 
special contribution to the literature of 
the war. Besides the splendid ones 
given in the pages which follow, similar 
ones may be found in the Atlantic 
article already referred to, and in "Les 
Diverses Families Spirituelles de la 
France," where they form the woof and 
warp of the text, while others are scat- 
tered through the pages of the half 
dozen volumes made up of his remark- 
able articles contributed to the Paris 
daily, L'Echo de Paris, and brought 
together under the collective title, 
"L'Ame Frangaise et la Guerre." Still 
others appear in some of the many pref- 
aces which M. Barres has added to the 
war books of his friends. 

Some surprise may be occasioned in 
the minds of those of a skeptical turn 



xii FOREWORD 

of thought at the apparently inexhausti- 
ble stock of these letters. Whence does 
M. Barres get all these epistles d'outre 
tomhe? In "Les Diverses Families 
Spirituelles de la France," M. Barres 
himself answers this question when he 
speaks of "the millions of sublime 
letters, which, for the past two years, 
have furnished France her spiritual 
food, . . . these innumerable letters, 
perhaps a million a day." And it 
should be remembered that the number 
of young men at the front who write 
them is an almost constant number and 
will continue to be so until the end of 
the war, for each year the new "class," 
composed mostly of boys from nineteen 
to twenty, enters upon its military duties 
in the trenches. 

Other readers of these letters may 
ask whether all the soldier boys of 
France write like those presented to the 
public by M. Barres. Without giving 
a direct answer to this question, I may 
say that everybody who is in close touch 
with the noble France of to-day has had 



FOREWORD xiii 

experiences similar to those of M. 
Barres. 

During the first fourteen months of 
this war I served as an orderly in a 
large military hospital near Paris where 
we had some six hundred wounded. My 
duties were ta write letters for those 
young Frenchmen who were incapaci- 
tated in any way from writing for them- 
selves, and I can say that I often helped 
to put on paper just such thoughts as 
those found in the letters revealed to us 
by M. Barres, while during my present 
sojourn in the United States I have 
received directly or indirectly letters of 
this same tenor. 

Thus, a retired artillery officer, 
Major Levylier, of Decauville, Calva- 
dos, wrote me last winter: 

"My son. Lieutenant Paul Levylier, 
of the 25th regiment of dragoons, was 
completing his second year in archi- 
tecture at the Paris School of Fine Arts, 
when the war broke out. At the mo- 
ment of mobilization he wrote to his 
elder sister and asked her in case of his 



xiv FOREWORD 

death to request me to give the neces- 
sary capital to found a prize at the 
school; which I have done. His letter 
ended with these words for the rest of 
the family: 'Tell them to close their 
eyes; then you kiss them and they will 
think it is L' He died bravely in Cham- 
pagne on October 6, 19 15, crushed by a 
shell, at the head of his platoon. His 
last words to his captain were : 'Tell 
Father that I died for France.' " 

M. Charles Torquet, the Paris dram- 
atist and the literary executor of the 
young poet, Jacques de Choudens, 
severely wounded in August, 19 14, and 
killed the following June, sends me these 
words which this superb youth wrote 
from the front to his grandmother: "If 
I do not come back, find consolation in 
this grander thought that I have con- 
tributed in my humble way to make thee 
more proud to be a French woman." 

Another youthful soldier-poet, Gus- 
tave Rouger, sends me from a military 
hospital in the south of France, where 
he is convalescing, these lines, which 



FOREWORD XV 

seem to breathe a premonition like that 
also expressed by Jacques de Choudens 
when he was on the point of returning 
to the front, that he "may never come 
back," and which end a long poem, still 
in manuscript, which has just been 
awarded the literary prize of the Paris 
Society of Men of Letters: 

Quand eclatera la fleur epanouie, 
Avant que d'ici-bas ma pauvre ame 

s'enfuie. 
Ah, laissez-moi chanter, mon Dieu, 

chanter toujours, 
Avec tout mon elan vers la sainte 

demeure, 
Ou vos bras s'ouvriront pour m'accueil- 

lir un jour, 
Ah, laissez-moi chanter, avant que je ne 

meure, 
L'Eternelle Beaute dans I'Eternel 

Amour. 

Theodore Stanton. 
Cornell Campus, October, 19 17. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Foreword by Theodore Stanton . v 

Introduction i 

I . . 4 

11 35. 

Ill 46 



THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 



THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF 
FRANCE 

An Address delivered in London, 
AT THE Hall of the Royal So- 
ciety, UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE 

British Academy, July 12, 19 16. 

Ladies and Gentlemen: 

In his Litany of Nations your poet 
Swinburne puts these words into 
the mouth of France apostrophizing 
Liberty: 

I am she that was thy sign and standard- 
bearer, 
Thy voice and cry ; 
She that washed thee with her blood and left 
thee fairer, 
The same was I. 
Were not these the hands that raised thee 
fallen and fed thee. 
These hands defiled? 
Was not I thy tongue that spake, thine eye 
that led thee, 
Not I thy child ? 



2 THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 

How many men and how many na- 
tions, since 1870, have beheved that we 
were unworthy of this eulogy that so 
touched our hearts. We were mis- 
trusted. They said of us: "They are 
no longer what they were . . . France 
is a nation grown old, an ancient 
nation," 

Especial stress was laid upon the 
idea of France as an old nation. And 
therein they expressed but the truth; 
France was when no such thing existed 
as Germanic consciousness, or Italian or 
English consciousness; in truth we were 
the first nation of all Europe to grasp 
the idea of constituting a home-land; 
but there seems no reason why claims 
of such a nature should work to our 
discredit with nations of more recent 
origin. 

Among those who thus spoke there 
were many who looked upon us without 
animosity, sometimes even with sym- 
pathy. According to them France had 
In the past laid up a vast store of vir- 
tues, noble deeds, and glorious achieve- 



THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 3 

ments beyond compare, but to-day is 
seated in the midst of these Hke an old 
man in the evening of the most success- 
ful of lives, or still more like certain 
worldly aristocrats of illustrious line- 
age, who have preserved of their inherit- 
ance only their titles of nobility, charm- 
ing manners, superb portraits, regal 
tapestries and books adorned with coats 
of arms, all denoting sumptuous but 
trivial luxury. 

It was in this wise, as we well under- 
stand, that we had come to be regarded 
as jaded triflers, far too affluent and 
light-hearted, with pleasure as our only 
concern; the French people were sup- 
posed to allow impulse and passion 
to determine the course of their lives, 
pleasure being the supreme good sought, 
and to Paris came representatives from 
every nation to share in this pleasure. 

Small wonder that the undiscerning 
foreigner, intoxicated by the easy and 
cosmopolitan pleasures of Paris, failed 
to recognize the underlying force pres- 
ent at every French fireside, which 



4- THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 

prides itself upon keeping remote and 
isolated from the passing crowd, or 
what was stirring in hearts ever hearken- 
ing the call to a crusade and needing, as 
it were, but the voice from a super- 
natural world to bring forth and reveal 
to themselves their inherent heroism. 

I 

August, 19 14. The call to arms re- 
sounds. The bells in every village echo 
in the towers of the ancient churches 
whose foundations arise from amidst 
the dead. These bells have suddenly 
become the voice of the land of France. 
They call together the men, they express 
compassion for the women; their clamor 
is so stupendous that it seems as if the 
very tombs would crumble, and all at 
once the French heart is unlocked and 
all the tenderness that has so long been 
kept concealed comes forth. 

Women, old men and children flock 
about the soldier, following him to the 
train. This is the hour of departure, 



THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 5 

not as Rude has depicted it, — carried 
along in the storm and stress of the 
Marseillaise, but a departure even more 
tragic in tone, in which the soldier 
mutters through set teeth: "Since they 
will have it, we must end it forever." 

The departure! We cannot be at 
the same moment in all the railroad sta- 
tions of Paris and of all our cities, towns 
and villages, on all the docks, nor upon 
all the boats bringing back loyal French- 
men from abroad. Suppose we go to 
the very heart of military France, to the 
school of Saint Cyr where the young 
officers receive their training. 

Every year at Saint Cyr the Fete du 
Triomphe is celebrated with great 
pomp. Upon this occasion is per- 
formed a traditional ceremony in which 
the young men who have just finished 
their two years' course at the school 
proceed to christen the class following it 
and bestow a name upon their juniors. 

In July, 1 9 14, this ceremony came 
just at the time of the events which in 
their hasty course brought on the war, 



6 THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 

and for that reason was to assume a 
more than usually serious character. 

On the thirty-first of the month the 
general in command at the school made 
known to the Montmirails (the name 
of the graduating class), that they 
would have to christen their juniors 
that same evening, and only according 
to military regulations, without the 
accustomed festivities. 

All understood that perhaps during 
the night they would have to join their 
respective regiments. 

Listen to the words of a young poet 
of the Montmirail class, Jean Allard- 
Meeus, as he tells his mother of the 
events of this evening, already become 
legendary among his compatriots : 
"After dinner the Assumption of Arms 
{prise d'armes) before the captain and 
the lieutenant on guard duty, the only 
officers entitled to witness this sacred 
rite. A lovely evening; the air is filled 
with almost oppressive fragrance; the 
most perfect order prevails amidst un- 
broken silence. The Montmirails are 



THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 7 

drawn up, officers with swords, 'men' 
with guns. The two classes take their 
places on the parade ground under com- 
mand of the major of the higher class. 
Excellent patriotic addresses, then, in 
the midst of growing emotion, I recited 

'To-MORROW' 

Soldiers of our illustrious race, 

Sleep, for your memories are sublime. 

Old time erases not the trace 

Of famous names graved on the tomb. 

Sleep; beyond the frontier line 

Ye soon will sleep, once more at home. 

"Never again, dearest mother, shall I 
repeat those lines, for never again shall 
I be on the eve of departure for out 
there, amongst a thousand young men 
trembling with feverish excitement, 
pride and hatred. Through my own 
emotion I must have touched upon a 
responsive chord, for I ended my verses 
amidst a general thrill. Oh, why did 
not the clarion sound the Call to Arms 
at their close ! We should all have 



8 THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 

carried its echoes with us as far as the 
Rhine." 

It was surrounded by this atmosphere 
of enthusiasm that the young officers re- 
ceived the title of Croix dti Drapeau for 
their class upon their promotion and it 
was at this juncture that one of the 
Montmirails, Gaston Voizard, cried 
out: "Let us swear to go into battle in 
full dress uniform, with white gloves 
and the plume (casoar) in our hats." 

"We swear it," made answer the five 
hundred of the Montmirail. 

"We swear it," echoed the voices of 
the five hundred of the Croix du 
Drapeau. 

A terrible scene and far too char- 
acteristically French, permeated by the 
admirable innocence and readiness to 
serve of these young men, and per- 
meated, likewise, with disastrous con- 
sequences. 

They kept their rash vow. It is not 
permissible for me to tell you the pro- 
portion of those who thus met death. 
These attractive boys of whom I have 



THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 9 

been telling you are no more. How 
have they fallen? 

There were not witnesses In all cases, 
but they all met death in the same way 
as did Lieutenant de Fayolle. 

On the twenty-second of August Alain 
de Fayolle of the Croix du Drapeau was 
at Charlerol leading a section. His 
men hesitate. The young sub-lieutenant 
has put on his white gloves but dis- 
covers that he has forgotten his plume. 
He draws from his saddle-bag the red 
and white plume and fastens it to his 
shako. 

"You will get killed, my lieutenant," 
protested a corporal. 

"Forward!" shouts the young officer. 

His men follow him, electrified. A 
few moments later a bullet strikes him 
in the middle of his forehead, just below 
the plume. 

On the same day, August 22, 19 14, 
fell Jean Allard-Meeus, the poet of the 
Montmirail, struck by two bullets. 

Gaston Voizard, the youth who sug- 
gested the vow, outlived them by only 



10 THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 

a few months. He seems to offer 
apologies for this in the charming and 
heart-breaking letter which follows. 

December 25, 1914. 

"It is midnight, Mademoiselle and 
good friend, and in order to write to 
you I have just removed my white 
gloves. (This is not a bid for admira- 
tion. The act has nothing of the heroic 
about it; my last colored pair adorn the 
hands of a poor foot-soldier {piou- 
piou) who was cold.) 

"I am unable to find words to express 
the pleasure and emotion caused me by 
your letter which arrived on the even- 
ing following a terrific bombardment of 
the poor little village which we are 
holding. The letter was accepted 
among us as balm for all possible rack- 
ing of nerves and other curses. That 
letter, which was read in the evening to 
the ofl^cers of my battalion, — I ask 
pardon for any offence to your modesty, 
— comforted the most cast down after 
the hard day and gave proof to all that 



THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE ii 

the heart of the young girls of France 
is nothing short of magnificent in its 
beneficence. 

*'It is, as I have said, midnight. To 
the honor and good fortune which have 
come to me of commanding my com- 
pany during the last week, (our captain 
having been wounded), I owe the 
pleasure of writing you at this hour 
from the trenches, where, by prodigies 
of cunning, I have succeeded in lighting 
a candle without attracting the attention 
of the gentlemen facing us, who are, by 
the way, not more than a hundred 
meters distant. 

"My men, under their breath, have 
struck up the traditional Christmas 
hymn, 'He is born, the Child Divine.' 
The sky glitters with stars. One feels 
like making merry over all this, and, 
behold, one is on the brink of tears. I 
think of Christmases of other years 
spent with my family; I think of the 
tremendous effort still to be made, of 
the small chance I have for coming out 
of this alive; I think, in short, that per- 



12 THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 

haps this minute I am living my last 
Christmas. 

"Regret, do you say? . . . No, not 
even sadness. Only a tinge of gloom at 
not being among all those I love. 

"All the sorrow of my thoughts is 
given to those best of friends fallen on 
the field of honor, whose loyal affection 
had made them almost my brothers; — 
Allard, Fayolle, so many dear friends 
whom I shall never see again! When 
on the evening of July 31, in my capa- 
city of Pere Systeme of the promotion, 
I had pronounced amidst a holy hush 
the famous vow to make ourselves con- 
spicuous by facing death wearing white 
gloves, our good-hearted Fayolle, who 
was, I may say, the most of an enthu- 
siast of all the friends I have ever 
known, said to me with a grin : 'What 
a stunning impression we shall make 
upon the Boches! They will be so 
astounded that they will forget to fire.' 
But, alas, poor Fayolle has paid dearly 
his debt to his country for the title of 
Saint-Cyrien ! And they are all falling 



THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 13 

around me, seeming to ask when the 
turn of their Pere Systeme is to come, 
so that Montmirail on entering Heaven 
may receive God's blessing with full 
ranks. 

"But a truce to useless repinings ! Let 
us give thought only to our dear France, 
our indispensable, imperishable, ever- 
living country ! And, by this beauteous 
Christmas night, let us put our faith 
more firmly than ever in victory. 

"I must ask you. Mademoiselle and 
good friend, to excuse this awful scrawl. 
Will you also allow me to hope for a 
reply in the near future and will you 
permit this young French officer very 
respectfully to kiss the hand of a great 
souled and generous-hearted maiden of 
France?" 

On the eighth of April, 19 15, came 
his turn to fall. 

Ah, how dearly France has paid at 
all times for its bravery! One can but 
approve the austere severity of the great 
commanders who discouraged the gen- 



14 THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 

erous impulse of these boys thus lavish 
of the treasure of their lives. War pro- 
vides the leaders of men with enough 
occasions for useful sacrifice without 
taking it upon themselves to invite a 
fatal ending. But we must not overlook 
the fact that these leaders of men are 
but boys. Sudden stress of circum- 
stances has called them to the battle- 
front. They feel a necessity for estab- 
lishing their leadership. But how? By 
their superior knowledge or experience? 
No means is open to them except 
through gallantry in attempting some 
deed of exceptional daring. 

That is evidently the idea which one 
of them, Georges Bosredon, a twenty- 
year-old Saint-Cyrien, had in mind 
when in writing to his sister he puts the 
matter thus forcibly : 

"Say nothing about it to Father and 
Mother, but, as an officer, I run small 
chance of returning. I fully recognize 
this and gladly from this hour offer my 
life as a sacrifice. We shall arrive at 
the front very young, with nothing 



THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 15 

especial to recommend us, to be put in 
command of men who have seen service, 
already old soldiers. To keep them 
going we shall have to give all we have 
and we shall give it." 

Generous-hearted youth, who makes 
no mention of mistakes made before he 
was born, and who, just arriving upon 
the scene, accepts as only natural that 
he should pay with his life for victory! 

In all our great schools and in all our 
colleges the boys are brothers to these 
young military commanders. To them 
all one thing alone is of importance: 
that France should no longer remain a 
vanquished nation. These are the 
young, the pure, the source of new life, 
the sacrificial offering of their native 
land. They stand ready to accept any 
burden laid upon them to render them 
worthy of their forefathers, to fulfill 
their destiny and to ransom France. 

The college professors made no mis- 
take in judging of them. For some 
years they had heralded the oncoming 
of a generation of clear-eyed youths. 



l6 THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 

with confident bearing and hearts know- 
ing no fear. Destiny was preparing 
deliverers for France. "Whence issues 
the France of August 2nd?" exclaims 
one of the masters of the Lycee Janson- 
de-Sailly.* "From beneath the threat 
of Germany under which it has been 
bowed down for forty years. This 
anguish, this prolonged humiliation, 
gives place at last to highest hopes." 

Such are the young men of our nation. 
But war has brought together into the 
army the entire male population from 
eighteen to forty-eight years of age. 

Naturally a man of forty does not 
leave home with that intoxication of 
happiness that we have just observed in 
our young Saint-Cyriens. He no longer 
feels that "criminal love of danger" 
which Tolstoi, talking near the end of 
his long life with Deroulede, acknowl- 
edged to have himself felt in his youth. 
This is due in part to the cooling of the 
blood; it is also due to the opening up 
of a new horizon. 

*M. S. Rocheblave. 



THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 17 

In Starting a home of his own the 
young man of yesterday has taken upon 
himself certain duties of protection 
toward his family. How can he be ex- 
pected to show the magnificent impetu- 
osity of the Saint-Cyrien who says: "To 
be a young officer during the war is 
truly the career in which are to be 
reaped one after another the rewards 
of honor, energy and devotion."* The 
father of a family has already gathered 
to himself the rewards of life; he has to 
forsake them and, if he fails in the 
beauty of alacrity, what he manifests is 
the beauty of a sacrifice always con- 
templated. This sense of the sacrifice 
he is making is felt also by the younger 
man, but he hastily dismisses appre- 
hension on this score, will not admit it 
so much as to himself, and meeting it 
face to face, rejects it with anger. The 
older soldier, on the contrary, welcomes 
it and regards it as meritorious, it may 
be as an offering to God, or it may be as 
an offering to his native land. 

*Jean Allard-Meeus in a letter to his mother. 



i8 THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 

Gemens spero was the motto as- 
sumed in the mud of the Artois trenches, 
by the soldier Francois Laurentie, the 
father of six children. He indeed suf- 
fered, but was cheered by the hope that 
his offspring would not have to suffer. 
All testamentary letters issuing from the 
trenches echo the same refrain. The 
Territorial fights that his children may 
not be called upon to fight. He makes 
war to abolish war. 

But he fights also for his native land. 
What must have been the feeling of the 
men of the Twentieth Corps shedding 
their blood before Nancy and before 
Verdun ! And we can picture the emo- 
tion of the men of Peguy and the sub- 
urban dwellers of Belleville and Bercy 
when, at the end of their retreat in 
September, 19 14, they caught sight of 
the great city enveloped in mist, — Paris, 
to whose defence they were hastening. 
One of these, Victor Boudon, who had 
been wounded at the Battle of the 
Ourcq, writes on that occasion: "From 
afar we could discern the white rays of 



THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE jg 

the searchlights on the forts of Paris 
and, from time to time, through the 
foliage the lights of the capital itself. 
Our hearts beat violently with joy and 
with dread." 

Another soldier, a shrewd observer 
of these beginnings of the campaign, 
thus sums up his testimony: "An all- 
pervading atmosphere of devout offer- 
ing." 

And what does the war make of these 
youths and old men? A brotherhood. 
Binet-Valmer, enlisted as a volunteer 
for the duration of the war, sends me 
from the front where he is fighting this 
most wonderful phrase, which echoes 
the feeling of all: "Our men are worthy 
of unstinted admiration, and we all love 
one another." 

The men are admirable, that is to 
say, they are ready to sacrifice them- 
selves. Behold these soldiers volun- 
teering for the most perilous services, — 
soldiers who go of their own motion to 
carry off wounded comrades from be- 
tween the trenches and to bury the dead; 



20 THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 

it is needless to enumerate such occur- 
rences or to present proof of them. It 
is recognized that the sons of France 
are brave. And throughout the world 
everyone knows about the battle which 
has been going on for five months and 
which we may rightfully call the victory 
of Verdun. 

But, it may be urged, the men in the 
other armies also are brave. 

A striking fact, and one which 
especially impressed your great Rud- 
yard Kipling as glorious to a degree 
seen nowhere else, is the attachment felt 
by the French soldiers to their com- 
manders, and by the officers to their 
men, and the loyalty of all to one 
another. 

Between them no falsehood is pos- 
sible. In that life truth prevails among 
all. At the outset there was some evi- 
dence of extreme republicanism {sans- 
culottisme), a. sort of scoffing spirit in 
which there survived in the citizen sol- 
dier an excessive feeling of independ- 
ence in his attitude toward his com- 



THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 21 

mander. But since that time, under 
experiences and trials shared together, 
this dangerous feeling has been de- 
veloped and ennobled; while these men 
preserve toward one another an attitude 
of criticism as severe as ever, they have 
adopted as a standard of measurement 
the service rendered to the common 
good. They no longer cleave to any 
but those manifesting actual superiority, 
whether of mind or heart. 

In the midst of the carnage these 
sons of France constantly recall to mind 
that they are men with souls. The best 
of them raise their bloody hands toward 
Heaven each invoking his God. Each 
one of them is taken up with trying to 
show the nobility of his thought through 
his gallantry and self-sacrifice. Each 
acts as if he knew (and he does know) 
that the people of his faith throughout 
all France have entrusted to his safe- 
keeping their honor and the fortunes of 
the ideal for which they all are striving. 
Our schoolmasters vie with our priests 
in their efforts, while the elite of the 



22 THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 

nation and their brothers in arms join 
in admiration equally apportioned be- 
tween them. 

Pere Gironde writes in his private 
diary: "To so conduct myself that we 
cannot again be sent into exile." And 
Herve's paper publishes, every day, 
letters forming a cult in themselves, in 
which the Socialists voice the question: 
"What reproach can henceforth be 
brought against us? Is our faith in 
internationalism sufficiently justified now 
it has given us the firm will to save 
France?" 

All are actuated by a lofty moral 
purpose: the pride and necessity of 
shedding their blood only in a just cause. 

To lift us to the heights where dwell 
the soldiers of this war what nobler 
example of spiritual helpfulness toward 
one another could be afforded than the 
devotion shown by Lieutenant Colonel 
Driant? At the peril of his life Driant 
made his way to the side of one of his 
lieutenants lying wounded, and under 



THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 23 

fire of the enemy received his confession 
and gave him absolution. 

The soil of the trenches is holy 
ground; it is saturated with blood, it is 
saturated with spirituality. 

This intimate brotherhood, this com- 
munity of spirit, continuing throughout 
two years of warfare, results in giving 
to certain military units a collective soul. 
Certain among these souls are char- 
acterized by such nobility, sending forth 
a radiance comparable to that of the 
Saints, that other groups receive an in- 
crement to their own spirit as a result, 
simply, of admiration of the qualities 
thus demonstrated. 

"It was in Artois, in the spring of 
19 1 5," as a young soldier, Roland En- 
gerand, related to me; "my regiment 
was coming from a quiet sector on the 
Aisne where we had sustained few 
losses. The day before we had received 
further re-enforcement from the class 
of 1915. We had been completely fitted 
out with new clothing. Our horizon- 
blue uniforms had not had time to be 



24 THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 

defaced by mud, dust and rain; we were 
overflowing with enthusiasm; proudly, 
with full complement of officers and an 
officer or provisional officer at the head 
of each section, our columns, three thou- 
sand two hundred strong, stretched out 
along the way. We had been told that 
we were going to a sacred spot whither 
all eyes were turned. The opening, so 
long dreamed of, had been virtually 
made some hours before, owing to un- 
heard-of feats of heroism performed by 
the *Iron' and 'Bronze' divisions. We 
were to relieve these troops and, as we 
climbed to the trenches by the loveliest 
of twilights, we began to ask ourselves 
with some disquiet whether we could 
rise to such heights of valor, for it is no 
light matter to come next in succession 
to such a record. And, suddenly, upon 
the road before us, illumined by the 
setting sun which turned every object 
to gold, there appeared a sturdy group. 
Soldiers were approaching, slowly, with- 
out haste and without noise; men in 
rags, still clad in the old dark-blue uni- 



THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 25 

forms, much torn and soiled with mire 
and blood; guns fouled and rusty; shoes 
unworthy the name; red kepis, ill-con- 
cealed by tatters of blue coverings, and, 
amidst all of this, superb countenances, 
dirty, unshaven, with the poor features 
drawn and stiffened and eyes whose 
gaze penetrated to our very souls, for 
therein were reflected all the sublime 
sights witnessed during the two weeks 
just passed. What radiance emanated 
from these faces of ecstatic suffering 
and victory! They passed close to us, 
these men; looking upon us with curi- 
osity, marveling at our luxurious ap- 
pointments and at our numbers, and, 
while fihng past, said to us simply: 
'Don't worry. Keep up your courage; 
they have had the worst of it.' All 
joined in saying: 'They have had the 
worst of it.' There were voices 
amongst these distinguishable as young, 
voices of Parisians, voices of harsher 
accent, voices from the east, and, at the 
last, the voice with an Alsatian accent 
which flung out to us from the rear 



26 THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 

rank: 'Les Bauches, they have had the 
worst of it.' That was all that they 
recalled after all their sufferings. Their 
captain looked upon them in silence with 
an expression of wondrous affection. 

"And while we, much moved by this 
encounter, advanced up the slope to take 
their place, they disappeared from sight 
with their weary, triumphant step. 

"That day I understood what the 
real beauty of glory is." 

What sublimity in the last word 
uttered by this boy! It is thus that 
hearts of true nobility are set aflame by 
contact with heroism. It is thus that 
the spirit prevailing at the front, in- 
stilled into the Twentieth Corps at its 
origin and perpetuated by it, circulates 
through and about the souls which it 
kindles into flame. 

And sometimes this aggregate soul 
finds voice. 

To-day throughout the world every- 
one knows about an incident which 
innumerable newspaper and magazine 
articles, prints and poems have brought 



THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 27 

before the public. Doubtless you will 
recall it. The Germans had entered a 
trench and shattered all resistance; our 
soldiers lay stretched to earth, when, 
suddenly, from this heap of dead and 
wounded, one arises and, seizing a sack 
of grenades within reach of his hand, 
cries out: "To your feet, ye dead men." 
With a rush the invader is swept back. 
The inspired word had caused a resur- 
rection. 

I was anxious to know the hero of 
this immortal deed, — Lieutenant Peri- 
card. Here is the tale as he told it to 
me: 

"It was at the Bois-Brule early in 
April, 19 1 5. We had been fighting for 
three days; there was only a handful of 
worn-out men left of us in the trench, 
absolutely cut off, with a rain of gre- 
nades descending upon our heads. If 
the Boches had known how few we 
were ! Their artillery raged incessantly. 
A lieutenant, whose name I cannot now 
recall, and who had come to my support, 
stood puffing at his cigarette and laugh- 



28 THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 

ing at the projectiles, when a bullet 
struck him just above the temple. He 
leaned against the parapet, his arms 
crossed behind him, his head bent 
slightly forward. From the wound the 
blood gushes out describing a parabola, 
like wine through a gimlet-hole in the 
cask. The head drops further and 
further forward, then the body, then, all 
at once, he drops. 

"You should have seen the anguish of 
his men, who threw themselves sobbing 
upon his body! ... It was impossible 
to take a step without treading upon a 
corpse. Suddenly the precariousness of 
my situation comes over me. The 
frenzy which had transported me drops 
away. I am afraid. I throw myself 
behind a heap of sacks. The soldier 
Bonnot remains alone. He gives no 
heed to anything, but continues to fight 
like a lion, single-handed against what 
numbers ! 

"I pull myself together; his example 
has shamed me. A few comrades rejoin 
us. The day draws to a close. We 



THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 29 

cannot remain as we are. To the right 
there is still no one in sight. I can look 
along the trench for a distance of thirty 
meters, where it is broken into by an 
enormous bomb-proof. Supposing I 
should go and see what is going on over 
beyond there! T hesitate. Then, with 
one resolute effort, the decision is made. 
"The trench is filled with bodies of 
French soldiers. Blood everywhere. 
At the first I step forward warily, very 
uneasy. What! I alone among all 
these dead men? Then, little by little, 
I grow bolder. I venture to look at 
these bodies and I seem to see their eyes 
fixed upon me. From our own trench, 
behind me, men are gazing at me with 
horror in their eyes in which I can read: 
*He will surely get killed.' It is true 
that from the screen of their shelter 
trenches the Boches are redoubling their 
efforts. Their grenades are falling all 
about and the avalanche is fast ap- 
proaching. I turn back toward the 
bodies stretched out on the earth. I can 
but think: 'Then their sacrifice is all to 



30 THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 

be in vain. It will have been to no avail 
that these men have fallen. And the 
Boches will come back. And they will 
steal our dead from us!' . . .1 was 
transported with rage. Of what I did 
or precisely what I said I no longer 
have any clear recollection. I only 
know that I called out something about 
like this: 'Come on there! Get up! 
What are you doing lying there? Let's 
chase these swine out of here.' 

" 'To your feet, ye dead men!' Was 
it raving madness? No. For the dead 
replied. They said to me : 'We follow 
you.' And, rising at my call, their souls 
mingled with mine and formed a flaming 
mass, a mighty stream of molten metal. 
Nothing could now astonish or hinder 
me. I had the faith which removes 
mountains. My voice, hoarse and frayed 
with calling out orders during the two 
days and night, had come back to me, 
clear and strong. 

"What took place then? Since I 
want to tell you only of what I can my- 
self recall, leaving out of account what 



THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 31 

has been related to me afterward, I 
must frankly own that I do not know. 
There is a gap in my recollections; 
action has consumed memory. I have 
but a vague idea of a disordered offen- 
sive attack in which Bonnot, always in 
the front rank, stands out clearly from 
the others. One of the men of my sec- 
tion, though wounded in the arm, never 
ceased hurling upon the enemy grenades 
stained with his blood. As for myself, 
it seems as if I had been given a body 
which had grown and expanded inordi- 
nately, — the body of a giant, with super- 
abundant, limitless energy, extraor- 
dinary facility of thought which enabled 
me to have my eye in ten places at a 
time, — to call out an order to one man 
while indicating an order to another by 
gesture, — to fire a gun and protect 
myself at the same time from a threaten- 
ing grenade. 

"A prodigious intensity of life 
coupled with extraordinary episodes ! 
On two occasions we ran completely out 
of grenades, and on two occasions we 



32 THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 

discovered full sacks of them at our 
feet, mixed in with the sandbags. All 
day long we had been walking over them 
without seeing them. But no doubt it 
was the \dead who had placed them 
there ! . . . 

"At last the Boches began to calm 
down; we had a chance to consolidate 
our barricade of sacks farther along in 
the trench. We were again masters of 
the situation in our angle. 

"Throughout the evening and for 
several days following I remained under 
the influence of the spiritual emotion by 
which I had been carried away at the 
time of the summons to the dead. I 
had something of the same feeling that 
one has after partaking fervently of the 
communion. I recognized that I had 
just been living through such hours as I 
should never see again, during which my 
head, having by violent exertion broken 
an opening through the ceiling, had 
risen into the region of the supernatural, 
into the invisible world peopled by gods 
and heroes. 



THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 33 

"At that moment, certainly, I was 
lifted up above myself. It must have 
been so, for I received the congratula- 
tions of my men upon it. To any one 
who has lived in company with the 
poilus there is no Legion of Honor 
which is to be compared in value to such 
congratulations. 

"If, in telling you of these events, I 
seem to you to be seeking satisfaction 
to my vanity, it is because I have ill- 
expressed my feeling and my intention. 
I well know that there is nothing of the 
hero about me. Every time that I have 
had to leap over the parapet I have 
shivered with fright, and the terror with 
which I was seized in the press of 
battle, of which I told you a few mo- 
ments ago, is not an accidental occur- 
rence in my life as a soldier. I have 
earned no approbation of any sort. It 
was the living who carried me along by 
their example, and the dead who led 
me by the hand. The summons did not 
issue from the lips of a man, but from 
the hearts of all those lying prostrate 



34 THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 

there, living and dead. One man alone 
could not strii<^e the keynote. For that 
is needed the collaboration of many 
souls uplifted by circumstances, of 
whom some had already begun their 
flight into eternity. 

"Why was it that I was chosen rather 
than some officer or some soldier among 
those who were concerned in the affair, 
— one whose courage had not, like mine, 
known faltering? Why was it I rather 
than Colonel de Belnay, who ran up 
and down the lines under a downpour 
of grenades; or Lieutenant Erlaud, or 
Sub-lieutenant Pellerin, or Provisional 
Officer Vignaud, or Sergeant Prot, or 
Corporal Chuy, or Corporal Thevin, or 
Private Bonnot? (He went on to 
mention an endless number besides 
these.) Wherefore? Because one may 
receive inspiration from above and yet 
be only a poor ordinary man. 

"If ever you tell this tale I adjure you 
to give the names of all these com- 
manders and these soldiers, for it would 
be an untruth to make it seem as if I 



THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 35 

were monopolizing the glory of our 
regiment's great day. The summons 
was not mine alone, it was that of us 
all. The more you sink my part in the 
whole mass, the nearer you will come 
to actual fact. I am firmly persuaded 
of having been only an instrument in 
the hands of a power above." 

II 

Here are the facts. Here at least is 
a sample, — a sample of the wine which 
for two years has been fermenting on 
our hills, of the wheat of our furrows 
and of the blood of our battles. 

But in all this is there, after all, any- 
thing unheard-of or unexpected? It is 
fruit produced by France, similar to that 
which this ancient nation has yielded so 
many times throughout the centuries of 
her existence; it is the wine, the wheat, 
the blood of all our epics. We may 
recognize in our past a prototype of 
each one of the qualities and exploits 
which we have just observed. The 



36 THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 

heroic poems (Chansons de Geste), 
the Crusades, all the early years of 
France, abound with innumerable deeds 
achieved by our knights and by the 
Sancta Plehs Dei which, in anticipation, 
usher in the feats inscribed in our army 
reports in 1916. 

The mortal vow of the young Saint- 
Cyriens — why that is a typical episode 
of our Chansons de Geste. There is no 
theme which they develop with greater 
freshness and spirit than the warlike 
alacrity, purity and willing obedience of 
the young heroes, the Aymerillots, the 
Rolands, Guy de Bourgognes in their 
early adolescence. 

When the Montmirails and the Croix 
du Drapeaus take their oath to undergo 
their baptism of fire wearing white 
gloves and with the plume in their 
kepis, it is a chapter of the "Enfances 
Vivien" brought to life again. 

On the day when the young Vivien 
assumes the arms of a knight he swears 
before his assembled family never to 
give ground the length of his spear in 



THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 37 

battle, and it is owing to that oath that 
he comes to his death. 

Gemens spero; this is the thought 
which the recollection of his six children 
inspires in the Territorial; he takes 
mournful satisfaction in calling them to 
mind. A parallel case to the knight of 
whom Jacques de Vitry tells us, who, at 
the moment of his departure for the 
Crusade, assembles his children about 
him. "I had them all come," he ex- 
plains, "so that my grief at parting 
should be the more poignant and thus 
make offering to God of a greater sacri- 
fice." 

The sense of equality and brother- 
hood prevailing in our trenches. . . . 
Joinville relates that Saint Louis worked 
in the trenches and himself shouldered 
the carrying-basket. 

"None is base until his actions prove him 
base." 

(Nuls nest vilains s'il ne fait vilenie.) 

This is a line from the Chansons de 
Geste, as it might equally well have been 



38 THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 

a line from Corneille, as it likewise is 
the thought of every man and woman 
in France in 191 6. During the Battle 
of Antioch the Bishop of Puy thus ad- 
dressed the Crusaders: 

"We who are all baptized in the 
name of Christ are all the sons of God 
and brothers one of another. . . . Let 
us wage war, then, in the same spirit, 
as brothers." And, again, it is the Sire 
de Bourlemont who speaks. (Now 
Bourlemont is the Seigniory over Dom- 
remy, Jeanne d'Arc's birthplace, and 
the Sire de Bourlemont, he whose grand- 
son was destined later to know Jeanne 
d'Arc.) To Joinville, who was starting 
for the Crusade, the Sire de Bourlemont 
gave utterance to these words: 

"Ye are about to betake yourselves 
to lands beyond the seas; now it be- 
hooves you to take thought against the 
time of your return, for no Chevalier, 
be he poor or rich, may return without 
suffering disgrace if he leave in the 
hands of the Saracens the lowly people 



THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 39 

of our Lord in whose company he 
journeyed forth." 

Driant crawling through the storm of 
shot and shell to carry absolution to a 
dying lieutenant. It is the same story 
as that of William of Orange coming to 
the rescue of his nephew Vivien at the 
Battle of Aliscamps. He is too late in 
getting there, he fights at great length 
to reach him, does not succeed in find- 
ing him either alive or dead. Evening 
comes on. He rides about the field, 
very weary. From his brow, encircled 
by the band of his helmet, drops of 
blood fall as from the crown of thorns. 
He searches in vain for Vivien. At last 
upon the grass at his feet he recognizes 
the boy's shield, bristling with arrows. 
Further on, not far from a spring, 
under the spreading branches of a huge 
olive tree, lies Vivien insensible, his 
pallid hands crossed upon his breast. 
William dismounts, clasps him all bleed- 
ing in his arms and weeps over him as 
one dead. "Nephew Vivien, lovely 
youth, this is a piteous end to your deeds 



40 THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 

of prowess just begun." But, little by 
little, the boy in his arms shows signs of 
life, he opens his eyes; he had "kept his 
hold on life," knowing that William 
would come. Having given praise to 
God, William of Orange asks whether 
Vivien desires to make avowal of his 
sins to him as a "true confession." "I 
am thy uncle, no one here is nearer to 
thee than I, save God alone; in his stead 
and place I will be thy chaplain; I will 
stand sponsor to thee at this baptism." 
Vivien makes confession; the one great 
sin upon his soul is that of having fled, 
as he believes, contrary to his vow. 
William absolves him, then, taking the 
consecrated wafer from his alms-bag, 
administers the sacrament to the dying 
youth. Vivien gives up the ghost. 
Night has come, William could now 
make his escape alone across the hostile 
lines. And yet, when the moment comes 
for leaving the body there, he is seized 
with compunction. Desert him thus 
alone in the gloom ! When other 
fathers lose their sons in death do they 



THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 41 

not keep watch above their bodies 
through the night? He proceeds to tie 
his horse to the ohve tree and begins 
his vigil. Under the dense shade 
Vivien's body diffuses a radiance and a 
perfume as of balm and myrrh. The 
night is mild and tranquil. Standing 
beside the body of his dead boy the 
count weeps, he cannot sate his mind 
with what he beholds, and, letting pass 
the dawn, he waits until the sun be com- 
pletely above the horizon and shining 
brightly. Then, having repaired the 
broken latchets of his helmet, he once 
more kissed his nephew's face and 
gazed upon it for the last time. Mount- 
ing into the saddle he took his way 
slowly toward the road held by the 
Saracens until within bow-shot of the 
enemy when, shouting his battle-cry, he 
charged with his ashen lance in rest. 

To your feet, ye dead men! Surely 
we have heard before the wonder-work- 
ing summons of the Bois d'Ailly. At 
the siege of Ascalon the Templars be- 
hold, exposed above the gate of the city, 



42 THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 

a number of their brethren, hanged by 
the Saracens. They are filled with de- 
spondency and are for raising the siege; 
which seeing, the Grand Master of the 
Templars said to them: "Behold the 
dead are calling to us, for already they 
have taken the city." 

It would be possible to multiply to 
infinity the number of these similarities, 
these meeting points between the 
younger France and the France of to- 
day, held by some to be past its prime. 
Designers of the stained glass in our 
cathedrals have frequently placed figures 
from the ancient Scriptures in juxta- 
position to those of the new; here Jonah 
and the whale, there Christ and the 
tomb; here Moses and the burning bush, 
there the Virgin beside the manger; so 
I, in like manner, might call to mind 
instances without number, following the 
same rule of symmetry for setting off 
the likeness between the grandsons and 
their forefathers, and, to go still deeper, 
the correspondences between this war 
and all our other wars. 



THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 43 

We already knew the Zouave of 19 14 
who, from the middle of a group of 
prisoners behind which the Germans 
were sheltering themselves, called out 
to the French soldiers: "Fire ahead!" 
and died, riddled by their bullets. It was 
nine centuries before his time that the 
Saracens compelled a prisoner taken 
from the Crusaders to mount the battle- 
ments of Antioch that he might from 
there entreat his brethren to give up the 
assault upon the city. Instead he called 
to them to make the attack and the 
Saracens revenged themselves by cutting 
off his head. Etienne de Bourbon adds 
to the tale that the head, thrown from 
the top of the walls by a ballista, came 
into the hands of the Christians where it 
was noted that the countenance wore a 
smile of joy. 

Between these two comes the Cheva- 
lier d'Assas, the young soldier so 
terribly disfigured, who said: "If my 
father should see me now! But what 
does it matter! He did not beget me 
to be handsome, he begot me to be 



44 THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 

brave," into which assertion he evidently 
put the same pride as Montluc in enu- 
merating his seven arquebuse wounds, 
of which the most admirable to his 
mind was that of Rabastens which had 
torn a hole in his face. 

And, again, there was Captain de 

F who averred that: "An officer of 

my rank who does his duty under the 
circumstances in which I am placed 
should not return alive," evidence of a 
spirit of sacrifice surpassing the word of 
command given by Godfrey de Bouillon 
at the time of the last assault against 
Jerusalem at David's Gate: "Seek not 
to avoid death, go rather in search of 
It." 

The poet Charles Perrot was killed 
before Arras on the twenty-third of 
October; one of his comrades, perceiv- 
ing that he was ill, said to him: "I am 
going to take your place. You have 
done your full duty. Go and get 
some rest." To which Perrot replied: 
"There is no end to doing one's duty." 
This modern poet was of the same mind 



THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 45 

as the Chevalier Erard de Sivry who 
fought at the side of Joinvllle In a 
ruined house at Mansurah with five 
other chevaliers completing the garri- 
son. Horribly wounded in the face he 
hesitates at going to seek assistance lest 
some day discredit should result to him 
and his kindred. "You may well go," 
Joinvllle assured him, "for already you 
are a dead man"; but he was not to be 
satisfied with Jolnville's opinion, he felt 
that he must ask counsel one by one of 
each of the others. 

In the wood of La Grurie a company 
of the 151st Regiment of Infantry bars 
the entrance to the trench. Three men 
only can stand abreast at that spot. 
As fast as one falls another takes his 
place. The combat lasts for two hours; 
thirty men thus give up their lives. The 
incident Is a commonplace, one of 
almost daily occurrence. 

One cannot fail to be reminded of 
that episode of the Crusades known as 
*He Pas Saladin," which was everywhere 
commemorated and depicted in castle 



46 THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 

halls. It was your King Richard, 
Gautier de Chatillon, Guillaume des 
Barres and nine other knights who 
were holding this defile before Jaffa. 
Throughout the Middle Ages these 
twelve men were looked upon as very 
mirrors of chivalry, and their armorial 
bearings were preserved as precious 
relics. But we shall never know the 
names of the grenadiers of the wood of 
La Grurie and of so many other 
trenches. There are too many of them. 

Ill 

For more than a thousand years now 
this mighty stream of feats of valor has 
been flowing in undiminished volume. 
We have just been dipping into it; we 
could carry away from the passing 
flood only what could be contained in 
our two hands held together. And what 
about it all? What is proved by these 
entrancing and heroic achievements, 
this life beneath the surface, this over- 
flowing French spirit? 



THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 47 

The French make war as a religious 
duty. They were the first to formulate 
the idea of a holy war. The soldier of 
the year II, believing himself the bearer 
of liberty and equality to a captive 
world, dedicated himself with the same 
zeal and in the same spirit as the Cru- 
saders to Jerusalem. When the Cru- 
sader shouts "God wills it," when the 
volunteer at Valmy shouts "The Repub- 
lic calls us," it is but another form of 
the same battle-cry. The idea is that 
of bringing about more of justice and 
more of beauty in the world. To both 
a voice from Heaven or their con- 
science speaks, saying: 

"If you die, you will be holy martyrs."* 

It is not in France that wars are 
entered upon for the sake of the spoils. 
Wars for the sake of honor and glory? 
Yes, at times. But to carry the nation 
with it the people must feel itself a 
champion in the cause of God, a knight 

*Se <vous mourez, esterez sainz martirs. La 
Chanson de Roland. — Archbishop Turpin before 
the battle, to the array on its knees. 



48 THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 

upholding justice. We have to be con- 
vinced that we are contending against 
Barbarians, — in former days against 
Islam, at the present time against Pan 
Germanism, or against the despotic 
Prussian militarism and German im- 
perialism. 

Frenchmen fighting in defence of 
their country have believed almost al- 
ways that they were suffering and endur- 
ing that all humanity might be the 
better. They fight for their territory 
filled with sepulchers and for Heaven 
where Christ reigns, and up to which at 
least our aspirations rise. They die for 
France, as far as the purposes of France 
may be identified with the purposes of 
God or indeed with those of humanity. 
Thus it is that they wage war in the 
spirit of martyrs. 

Would you have me present to your 
minds a wonderful theme; would you 
know how our forefathers, nine centuries 
ago, were persuaded to go on Crusade? 
You would learn at the same time how 
our soldiers of the present day ought to 



THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 49 

be addressed. Listen to the words of 
Pope Urban II (a native of France, 
born in Champagne) as he preached 
before the Council of Clermont in 
Auvergne : "People of France," he said, 
"nation elect of God, as is shown by 
your deeds, and beloved of God, dis- 
tinguished above all others by your 
devotion to the holy faith and to the 
Church, it is to you that our word and 
our exhortation Is directed. . . . Upon 
whom may be laid the task of avenging 
the outrageous acts of the Unbelievers 
if not upon you. Frenchmen, to whom 
God has vouchsafed more than to any 
other people, Illustrious distinction in 
arms, exalted hearts and agile bodies 
with the power to bend those who oppose 
you? May your souls be stirred and 
quickened by the deeds of your ances- 
tors, the valor and might of your King 
Charlemagne, of his son Louis, and of 
your other kings, who have overthrown 
the dominion of the heathen and ex- 
tended the confines of the Holy Church ! 
. . . O very valiant knights, offspring 



50 THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 

of an invincible lineage, recall to mind 
the prowess of your fathers!" That 
was the right way to put things before 
our noble ancestors. And that is how 
they were pleaded with by Jeanne d'Arc, 
who called herself "the Daughter of 
God" {Fille Dieu) . Bonaparte adopted 
the same tone and with him the repub- 
lican generals, and it is still the same 
spirit with which the hearts of our 
soldiers are kindled when they rush for- 
ward out of the trenches singing the 
Marseillaise under the benison of their 
chaplains. 

Doubtless reason does its part in 
affecting and convincing us. The argu- 
ment is used that France is a real and 
tangible masterpiece whose outline must 
be perfected and maintained, that 
Strassburg and Metz are essential to 
her existence, that she needs to establish 
the balance to her southern population 
by accessions to the north and east, that 
she will be as if disarmed and open to 
attack as long as she remains deprived 
of her natural frontiers. But this would 



THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 51 

Still leave many apathetic. To be ready 
to sacrifice their lives the sons of France 
demand that they shall not die for the 
cause of France alone. 

There came a time when France 
burst the chain of her traditions and 
lost from sight even her memories of 
the past; nevertheless to her spiritual 
nature she still remained faithful. In 
each succeeding generation she has 
brought forth Rolands, Godfreys of 
Bouillon, Bayards, Turennes, Marceaus, 
unfamiliar as these names might have 
become, and at all times she is elate with 
sentiments which vary only in form of 
expression. 

The epic drowses at times, but never, 
from the beginning, was it more fired by 
brotherly love and zeal for religion than 
at the present hour. Many passages 
from the Old Testament, obscure and 
of small moment in themselves, do not 
reveal their full meaning except in the 
light of the New, so the feats of valor 
performed by knights of old and our 
revered ancestors seem but the pre- 



52 THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 

figuration of richer and holier things of 
to-day. The entire history of our na- 
tion would appear to have been leading 
up to what we have witnessed during 
the past two years. 

Millions of Frenchmen have entered 
this war with a fervor of heroism and 
martyrdom which formerly, in the most 
exalted epochs of our history, charac- 
terized only the flower of the com- 
batants. Young or old, poor or rich, 
and whatever his religious faith, the 
French soldier of 191 6 knows that his is 
a nation which intervenes when injustice 
prevails upon the earth, and in his 
muddy trench, gun in hand, he knows 
that he is carrying onward the Gesta 
Dei per Francos. 

Roland, on the evening after Ronce- 
vaux, murmurs with dying breath: "O 
Land of France, most sweet art thou, 
my country." It is with similar expres- 
sions and the same love that our soldiers 
of to-day are dying. "An revoir," 
writes Jean Cherlomey to his wife, 
"promise me to bear no grudge against 



THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 53 

France if she requires all of me." — "Au 
revoir, it is for the sake of France," 
were the dying words of Captain Her- 
sart de La Villemarque. — "Vive la 
France, I am well content, I am dying 
for her sake," said Corporal Voituret of 
the Second Dragoons, and expired while 
trying to sing the Marseillaise. — Albert 
Malet, whose handbooks are used in 
teaching history to our school children, 
enlisted for the war; his chest is pierced 
by a bullet, he shouts: "Forward, my 
friends ! I am happy in dying for 
France," and sinks upon the barbed wire 
in front of the enemy's trenches. — "Vive 
la France, I die, but I am well content," 
cry in turn, one after another, thousands 
of dying men, and the soldier Raissac 
of the Thirty-first of the line, mortally 
wounded on the twenty-third of Sep- 
tember, 1 9 14, finds strength before 
expiring to write on the back of his 
mother's photograph: "It is an honor 
for the French soldier to die." 

They do not wish to be mourned. 
Georges Morillot, a graduate of the 



54 THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 

Ecole Normale and sub-lieutenant in 
the Twenty-seventh Infantry, died for 
France in the forest of Apremont on 
December ii, 19 14, leaving a letter to 
his parents: "If this letter comes into 
your hands it will be because I am no 
more and because I shall have died the 
most glorious of deaths. Do not bewail 
me too much; my end is of all the most 
to be desired. . . . Speak of me from 
time to time as of one of those who have 
given their blood that France may live 
and who have died gladly. . . . Since 
my earliest childhood I have always 
dreamed of dying for my country, my 
face toward the foe. . . . Let me sleep 
where the accident of battle shall have 
placed me, by the side of those who, like 
myself, shall have died for France; I 
shall sleep well there. . . . My dear 
Father and Mother, happy are they who 
die for their native land. What matters 
the life of individuals if France is saved? 
My dearly-beloved, do not grieve. . . . 
Five la France/" — Louis Belanger, 
twenty years of age, killed by the enemy 



THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 55 

on September 28, 19 15, had written to 
his family: "I hope that my death will 
not be to you a cause of sorrow, but an 
occasion for pride. It is my wish that 
mourning should not be worn for me, 
for, in the glorious day when France 
shall be restored the sombre garb must 
not be allowed to dull the sunlight with 
which all French souls will be irradi- 
ated." In obedience to his desire the 
cards announcing his death were not 
framed in black, but edged with silver. 
Hubert Prouve-Drouot was a Saint- 
Cyrien of the class called La Grande 
Revanche, who died on the field of 
honor; when leaving home to join his 
regiment he makes this his last request 
to his mother: "When the troops come 
home victorious through the Arc de 
Triomphe, if I am no longer amongst 
them, put on your finest apparel and be 
there." 

The mothers understand and share 
this sacred enthusiasm. Beside the hos- 
pital bed, where lies extended the body 
of his dead son, a father weeps; the 



S6 THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 

mother, a peasant woman, takes him 
by the hand: "We have got to have 
courage, my husband. You see well 
enough the boy had it." — A soldier 
from Bagneres-de-Bigorre, a gardener 
at Lourdes, sorely wounded, died at the 
hospital of the Institution; his wife, 
summoned by telegram, arrives too late. 
Before thfe body lying cold In death she 
said simply: "He died for his country, 
she was his mother, I am only his wife." 
— Madame de Castelnau, the wife of 
the Illustrious general, while at the com- 
munion table was praying for her three 
sons at the front when she observed that 
the hand of the priest presenting her 
with the wafer was trembling. She 
understood and said simply: "Which 
one?" 

The fact is that the French mothers, 
sustained by a power above, believe that 
their sons, in yielding their lives for 
France, find, not death, but an evolution. 
One of them, who Is unwilling that her 
name should be given, uses this word In 
a letter radiant with sacred beauty. 



THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE S7 

Paris, October 20, 19 15. 
"Commandant, 

"I cannot thank you adequately for 
the accuracy of your sorrowful recollec- 
tions. The anniversary of the sacrifice 
of my brave boy is at the same time 
particularly cruel and particularly sweet; 
cruel, because it recalls to mind a day 
when I was thinking of him, without 
misgivings as to the anguish which his 
valor was to cost me; sweet, because I 
could not visualize the abrupt end of 
this pure and brief life under any other 
aspect than that of a supreme evolution. 

"I thank you, Commandant, for all 
that you tell me of my dear young 
soldier; may his glorious death con- 
tribute to the victory of our country; 
when that time comes I shall kneel and 
once more say 'I thank you.' My 
mother's heart remains shattered in face 
of the death of this boy of twenty years 
who was all my joy. Oh, how proud 
and how unhappy one can be at the same 
time! 

"Will you, Commandant, allow me to 



58 THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FRANCE 

transmit through you my tender feeling 
toward all those who cherish a remem- 
brance of him who has fallen in his 
country's defence, and say to them that 
my thoughts turn frequently to that 
Land of Lorraine, so dear to all French 
hearts?" 

"A supreme evolution," she says. It 
would seem, indeed, that we have known 
only the chrysalis form and that an 
entire people is unfolding its wings. 
The ever-living France is freeing her- 
self. It is for her that the sons of 
France are dying a death devoutly 
accepted by their mothers. 

A woman of the common people re- 
ceives notification of the death of her 
husband on the field of honor while she 
is holding in her arms her babe to whom 
she is giving nourishment. She reels, 
straightens up again and cries : "Five la 
France," holding up her son toward 
Heaven. Child of martyrs, offspring of 
thirty generations of such, thou shalt 
live to-morrow in a victorious France. 



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